Advantages

Jul 4thReading (Level 2) Beginners: Japanese show robot news readers

Japanese scientists have made the world’s first news-reading robots. They look and act like humans. They also sounded like human and had a sense of humor (can say funny things).

The scientists showed two robots to reporters. One of them is called “Kodomoroid; the other is “Otonaroid”. Both names use part of the English word “android” with the Japanese words for child and adult. The robots read news on an imaginary earthquake in Tokyo and a raid (short attack on a place) by the FBI. The robots’ creator is a top (very good) robotics professor, Hiroshi Ishiguro. He did not say when robots would really read the news on television.

Robots are big business in Japan. Many companies spend a lot of money on making (creating; building) them. They research (study) ways to make robots better and better. Japanese people have apositive imageof (like; think good things about) robots. They think they are helpful and cute. Westerners think robots are a little scary. They worry that robots will take over the world and control us.

Professor Ishiguro said: “We will have more and more robots in our everyday lives in the future.” He added that they are now not so expensive. He said: “Robots are now becoming affordable (less expensive soyou can buy them)- no different from owning a laptop”.